barefoot among the thorns and brambles of this weary world, in the
character of Hebe. We have none now who either 'sinner it or saint it'
on canvas; the flattery which the painter has to pay is of a more
scientific kind,--he has to trust alone to the truth of his drawing
and the harmony of his colors."

Romney was a transgressor in this way at times; but Lady Hamilton's
form was used to impart correct form to the conceptions of the
painter,--not the theme used merely to exploit the beauty of the lady.
In the exhibition of fair women in the Grafton Gallery in London this
summer, she greeted us in the guise of Ariadne. In this the painter's
use of the title was apt and justifiable. Here is the lady wholly
clothed in the dress of the time,--a dress superb in its simplicity;
but her pose and mien is indicative of the forsaken, the forlorn,
despairing woman abandoned by her lover,--the fate of which the old
story of the Greeks is the eternal epitome. The pathos of the pose, it
may have been, as well as the classic face, allured the wanderer in
the galleries, and anchored him before this canvas.

The fame of Romney has steadily risen in the several generations from
the beginning to the end of the century. Though the painter of many
men of fame and ladies of fashion, his work was not held in the
greatest regard in his lifetime. Though often spoken of as the rival
of Reynolds, he had not the president's grasp of character or his
ability in giving classic grace to the dress of the period, and he was
never admitted as a member to the Academy.

When Lady Hamilton commenced posing for him, he, perhaps wisely for
his fame, reduced the number of his ordinary sitters, receiving none
until afternoon. The picturing of what he termed "her divine beauty"